


we would only hold on to let go

by inconocible



Series: blow a kiss, fire a gun [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka can have a little alcohol as a treat, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Cody is only mentioned in passing in this fic but let me promise you that he also needs a hug, Domestic Violence, Episode: s04e15 Deception, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Clones (Star Wars), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Messy Grief, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, You can have a little headcanon as a treat, mild disassociation, oh boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22813480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: “It’s Anakin,” Padme says, and Ahsoka now has a name for the pain in her head, for the reason she’s been crying, for the hours she kind of lost track of between walking to lunch with her Master and Grandmaster and surfacing here on the floor in the Room of a Thousand Fountains with tears running down her cheeks.Anakin, the name of her headache is Anakin, his grief and pain searing and alive and unrestrained in her psyche, threatening to burn everything down.or: Ahsoka and Rex are left to care for Anakin and each other in the wake of Obi-Wan's death.(or: a missing scene from s04e15 that takes place before Ahsoka tells Plo that she's worried about Anakin because he hasn't said a word since it happened.)
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Plo Koon & Ahsoka Tano
Series: blow a kiss, fire a gun [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640044
Comments: 21
Kudos: 267





	we would only hold on to let go

**Author's Note:**

> _innocent, remember?  
>  all we did was [care for each other](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Tj8ZTRZxqgFfMc80vaP7m?si=sTATAOb0SY-tTgY0psQhMQ) _

Her communicator is beeping.

She checks the chrono function of her wrist unit, stares at the blinking light of the communicator function, hearing the beeping come to her in the same way that sound comes back after an explosion, slowly and out of sync. Her mind feels like jam, and also like mud, a little sweet and a little disgusting and a lot slow, a lot thick, hard to handle.

She doesn’t know how long, exactly, it’s been since Plo grasped her shoulder tightly, since he pushed the thought of going to bed to her, since he slipped away from where they’d been sitting together in meditation and left her alone in the dark, cool room, the thousand fountains’ tranquility almost enough to try to tell herself she was fine. 

Her wrist chrono says 0317.

She lifts her hands to her head, to the unspeakable pain in her mind that has something to do with her master, something to do with earlier, with why she was with Plo in the first place.

It’s taking so long to come out of her meditative state. She sighs. Time doesn’t feel real. Her body barely feels real. She tries to ground herself, rubs her fingertips against her temples, over the back of her neck and the base of her rear lek, presses them into the soft hollow of tired skin between her cheekbones and her orbital sockets.

Her fingertips come away wet, and she blinks, wondering if one of the fountains somehow sprayed her during her hours of meditation. She slipped away too deeply into the Force, she thinks. Her left knee, the one she hurt back on Zygerria, aches; a sign that she’s been sitting still for too long. She keeps massaging around her eyes. They’re gritty and sore -- which strikes her as odd, given that she’s been sitting in meditation for hours, her eyes closed and her body still, her consciousness lost in the Force. 

No, time doesn’t seem real yet, her body doesn’t seem real yet, but her communicator is still beeping, calling her back to real life. She sighs, licks her tongue over her chapped lips, recalling the flavor of the noodles she’d shared with Plo and Wolffe, hours before; the kindness of Wolffe to have brought them.

Her communicator is still beeping.

She lowers her hands, lifting the damp pads of her fingers up, watching them glisten in the low light of the room. _Tears_ , she realizes, belatedly. She’s been crying -- silently, slowly, sincerely -- for who knows how long, lost in meditation.

In her meditation she had been trying to give it all to the Force, but failing. Trying to give it all to the Force, but too distracted by a vision of a green owl, soaring in loops and swirls over -- over his body. Trying to give her feelings about _him_ to the Force, about his body under her hands, but -- 

Her communicator is still beeping.

She takes a deep breath in, lets it out, lifts her left wrist up to her face, answers the communicator.

“ _Ahsoka_ ,” the voice on the other end hisses urgently, and her mind finally clicks back into her body, as smooth and as satisfying and as audible as the _snick_ of armor locking into place around vulnerable vital organs.

“I’m here,” she responds, already on her feet without even knowing why, stretching out her knees and hips quickly, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her instincts telling her she will need to run, now; she had better warm up a little. She scrubs the heel of her right hand over her eyes, wiping away the last of her lingering tears. “What is it?”

“ _It’s Anakin_ ,” Padme says, and Ahsoka now has a name for the pain in her head, for the reason she’s been crying, for the hours she kind of lost track of between walking to lunch with her Master and Grandmaster and surfacing here on the floor in the Room of a Thousand Fountains with tears running down her cheeks.

Anakin, the name of her headache is _Anakin_ , his grief and pain searing and alive and unrestrained in her psyche, threatening to burn everything down. Ahsoka grits her teeth and closes her eyes and takes another deep breath in and closes down her side of their training bond a little more. 

She lets a breath out, opens her eyes. “What’s wrong with him?” she asks, because that is why her head is exploding, is why her heart long ago exploded: Something -- many things -- are wrong.

“ _He’s_ \--” Padme hesitates. “ _He’s not taking things well. I -- I would appreciate your help._ ” 

Ahsoka sighs. 

The name of her headache is:

The way that she and Anakin had walked, shellshocked, back to their apartment. The way she had sunken down on the couch, staring down at her hands, thinking of the way she had been able to feel Master Obi-Wan’s life-force draining out between them, the way she had put her hands on his body, tried to send him healing energy, the way it categorically had not worked. The way she had felt her training bond with him, the one they shouldn’t really have had in the first place, ripped away from her psyche, leaving behind a gaping, raw wound.

The way she hadn’t even been able to imagine how much Anakin’s matching psychic wound must have been hurting him.

The way Anakin had gone into his room and slammed the door, while she had sat down on the couch and looked at her hands. The way his metal fist had sounded, punching the wall of his room. The way he had howled, wordlessly; the way darkness had swirled almost palpably around him. The way he had slammed the bedroom door open, pushed the vague idea of _going to Padme_ to her through their bond, the way his hair had been standing up all wild as though he’d been trying to rip it out by its roots, the way his shoulders had been set as he’d stalked through the kitchenette to the front door of the apartment, the way he’d slammed the apartment door behind him.

The way she had been thinking probably she would live out the entire rest of her life unable to move from this spot, sitting on the couch staring at her hands, until, some indiscernible amount of time later, Plo had entered without knocking, had knelt before her, both his hands on her knees, shaking her until she’d registered his presence. Had hauled her up from the couch, had tucked her into him, had steered her to his apartment, warm and spicy smelling, and Wolffe had been there and there had been noodles in a takeout box and Ahsoka had eaten them.

Even then, the name of her headache had been Anakin, and had been Obi-Wan, and it had been the lunch they’d been on the way to get when Obi-Wan had been -- 

\-- and she’d made it silently, mechanically, through half of the hot, oily, noodles, wide and flat and chewy and delicious, tossed with stir-fried meat and vegetables, clearly procured from the food truck that frequently parked outside the clones’ barracks adjacent to the Temple, until suddenly the part of her headache that was not having eaten in too many hours was sated.

She had looked up at Wolffe and had found herself pulling The Commander over her, the same way she knew Obi-Wan always found the strength to pull The General over him, to check in on his men, no matter what else was going on.

“How are the men?” she’d asked Wolffe, suddenly, sharply. “How are Cody and the 212th doing?” she’d demanded, and he’d shrugged one shoulder over his takeout container, sharing a sidelong look with Master Plo.

“Not good,” Wolffe had deadpanned, and he’d looked back down into his noodles. Ahsoka had huffed out a sharp sigh, had set her container down on the table, had shot Rex a text message, asking after him, after Cody. _Don’t worry about us,_ Rex had responded, and Ahsoka hadn’t believed him.

“Now, shall we spar, or meditate?” Master Plo had asked her, as Wolffe had put the takeout containers in the recycling bin, had started moving around, tidying up the kitchenette as though he didn’t expect to see it again for some time. It had been a stroke of rare luck for the 104th, the 212th, and the 501st to all have 36 hours of overlap on Coruscant -- one that the Captains and Generals had all been glad of, and Ahsoka had sat, watching Wolffe wash the three pairs of chopsticks, wishing that they had never touched back down on the planet.

“I don’t have the energy to spar,” she’d eventually told Plo. The name of her headache had been, “My bonds, with -- with my Master, and with Master Obi-Wan, I’m -- they’re --” and she hadn’t been able to name it, had just lifted a hand to her forehead, sighing again, pinching either side of her temples in frustration and pain.

“I understand,” Plo had said, and he had gotten up, had shared a soft word with Wolffe about an early morning briefing, about perhaps splitting the 104th up so that he could stay on-planet for Obi-Wan’s funeral, and then he had grasped Wolffe by the forearm, had let him go, had gathered Ahsoka and her aching head back under his arm, had somehow gotten her through the halls of the Temple and past the staring eyes and whispered questions without interruption, had settled her down in Obi-Wan’s favorite spot in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, had slipped alongside her into a thick, heavy, meditation, the Force drawing around them like a melancholic fog, pulling her under like a current.

And her headache had cooled and expanded and spiraled out along the tug of the Living Force, of the Light ripples of the Cosmic Force, pulling her mind along just as a green owl soars gently on the breeze, Anakin’s uncontrolled emotional chaos that was tainting her bond with him fading into the background as Ahsoka had begun to try to let her feelings over Obi-Wan go.

At some point, Plo had grasped her shoulder tightly, had pushed the thought of going to bed to her, had slipped away from her, had left her alone in the dark, cool room, the thousand fountains’ tranquility almost enough to try to tell herself she was fine. 

And then Ahsoka had begun to cry: to cry without sound, without passion, without any impetus other than _pain_ , on so many levels. Deep, aching, life-altering, pain.

For, after immersing herself in the Force for long enough to come to a conclusion, Ahsoka had decided that Obi-Wan was definitely, unimaginably, unfathomably, dead.

But eventually her communicator had begun to beep, and she had still had a headache -- renewed in vigor, roaring behind her eyes and in her jaw and the base of her lekku -- when she had come out of it, when she had answered Padme’s call, when she had stood and begun to bounce on the balls of her feet, gearing up for whatever was coming next.

“Padme,” Ahsoka asks again, “what’s wrong with Anakin?” She rolls her shoulders and wrists around in their joints, focuses on the flow of blood quickening through her body.

Padme sighs. “ _He woke up from a bad dream, and he’s -- I’m --_ “ There’s a crash in the background of the transmission. Padme sighs again. “ _Please hurry, Ahsoka, if you can_ ,” she asks, authority and fear equally touching her voice even through the tinniness of the transmission, and Ahsoka begins to walk.

“Are you safe?” she asks.

“ _Yes,_ ” Padme says. “ _He’s not -- he didn’t mean to -- I’m locked in my office with Tania. Anyway, I think Anakin locked himself in the fresher. We’re safe. He’s just --_ ” and she sighs again.

“Okay,” Ahsoka says. “I’m coming.”

“ _There’s broken glass everywhere,_ ” Padme adds. “ _Watch your step._ ”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes, sighs _ugh_ under her breath. “Do you need a medic?” Ahsoka asks.

“ _No,_ ” Padme says, at the same time that Ahsoka can barely hear Tania, Padme’s current handmaid/bodyguard, add, “ _yes, you do, My Lady!_ ” 

“Okay,” Ahsoka says. “Okay, I’m coming, Padme. Just hold on, and stay where you are.”

“ _Be careful_ ,” Padme says before she ends the transmission, and Ahsoka rolls her eyes.

Ahsoka looks around the empty halls of the Temple, and starts to jog. Her steps echo in the silent hallway, the urgent click of her heels speaking of things harsher than the low, cool lights in this familiar place.

She lifts her communicator back to her mouth -- then she hesitates. It’s like 0330 in the morning, she reminds herself. She slows to a quick walk, closes her eyes, draws a breath in, concentrates on the whisper of the command bond that she should definitely not have with Rex -- a bond that a Padawan Commander shouldn’t be able to form, a bond that a Clone Captain should only be able to hold with his General -- and nudges curiously at his mind with hers. He’s awake, she’s sure of it, for he responds immediately, the impression of grief and fatigue and worry and a question all turned her way. She punches his codes into her communicator. 

“ _What is it_?” Rex asks, by way of greeting.

“It’s Anakin,” Ahsoka says. “Meet me at platform 3-West.”

“ _Got it,_ ” Rex says.

“Do we have a medic?” she adds. “I think he might be hurt. Senator Amidala, too.”

Rex sighs so mightily that it comes through the transmission as static. Ahsoka imagines his facial expression as the weight of his exasperation and worry blankets their bond, and she smiles, rolls her eyes in response, shakes her head, despite herself. “ _Kix is with me_ ,” he says.

“Perfect,” Ahsoka says, and she picks back up into a jog. “I’ll see you shortly.”

*

“Hey, boys,” Ahsoka had said, when she’d skidded around the corner to find a scowling Kix getting into the back of a four-seater traffic speeder, leaving Ahsoka the co-pilot’s spot. 

“Commander,” Rex had deadpanned back, frowning deeply at her, clearly annoyed and worried on top of the bone-deep grief, but a warm brush of affection had reached her through the feedback loop of aching sadness reverberating in their command bond, and she’d grinned at him as she’d hopped into the speeder, magnifying and reflecting that affection, that unique _light_ that stayed consistently in his center, back at him as much as she could. 

“Let’s go,” Ahsoka had said, and Rex had jammed his bucket on and peeled away at a bold speed from the Temple landing platform.

The trip had been quick; before Ahsoka can truly process the cool wind in her face and the bright lights of the always-on city-planet, they’re at Padme’s landing platform; Ahsoka’s picking the lock on the front door with the Force.

There’s an unnatural sound coming from the back of the apartment.

“Padme?” Ahsoka’s calling out, heading to the door to the room that serves as her home office, the first door to the right off the hall that leads back away from the dining room. Her footsteps, and Rex’s and Kix’s behind her, are loud and wrong as she walks through the apartment, the _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of broken glass under their boots telling of something that Ahsoka doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to know about, even though she already thinks she can guess what’s happened.

The door opens to reveal Padme, her hair and nightgown long and loose in a jarring contrast to the gleam of her small pistol-style blaster that she favors so much held firmly in her right hand. Tania peers warily at Ahsoka from over Padme’s shoulder.

“Oh, Ahsoka,” Padme says, gathering Ahsoka into a hug. She leans into the hug for long enough to be polite, but her head has been absolutely throbbing since she walked into the apartment, and the awful, wounded-animal sound hasn’t stopped.

She knows what it is, despite how much she doesn't want to know.

“Padme,” Ahsoka finally says, muffled into Padme’s shoulder. “Where’s Anakin?”

Padme sighs, pulls back, and Ahsoka realizes that Rex and Kix are down the hall already, that Padme has a bruise the perfect shape and size of her Master’s hand darkening over her throat.

“In the fresher,” Padme sighs, but Ahsoka is gaping at the bruise.

“Are you okay?” Ahsoka asks. “Padme, what did he --”

“He didn’t mean to,” Padme says firmly. “He woke up from a nightmare and -- everything started happening so quickly, I think every piece of glass in this place broke, I don’t -- “ She shakes her head, sighs. “I think,” she starts, a little slower. “He should be at the Temple. He’s very upset,” she says. “About Obi-Wan.”

Ahsoka frowns. “We all are,” she says, “but, this --”

“Commander!” Kix calls down the hall, and Ahsoka sighs. “Hold on,” she says to Padme, and she turns, jogs down the hall to where Kix hovers in the doorway of the fresher, Rex one step inside. It’s Anakin, Anakin is the wounded creature screaming, howling, sobbing uncontrollably, sitting on the floor under the sink with his knees drawn to his chest and his face pressed into the top of his knees and his fingers tight, tight in his hair. 

Rex takes off his helmet, looks at her. “Kix brought tranqs,” he offers quietly. 

Ahsoka feels like her karking head is about to split open under the force of Anakin’s emotions. “Give me a second,” she says. She bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut, calling up every last ounce of mental fortitude she has left to close off her bond with Anakin as much as possible without severing it entirely, to block Rex from the fatalistic pull of Anakin’s darkness, too, as much as she can.

Rex’s shoulders visibly relax, and he looks at her with both eyebrows raised.

Ahsoka shrugs, tries to smile at him like it’s nothing to be shielding both herself and him from the licking tongues of fire that are Anakin’s emotions, but everything hurts, her head kriffing _hurts_ , and it's taking all of her strength to repel the darkness that sucks at Anakin like a dying star. She grits her teeth and sighs her breath out and looks at Anakin.

“Hey, Master,” Ahsoka starts, with a forced cheer, walking toward him, beginning to kneel at his feet.

“Watch the glass!” Kix hisses from where he’s moved up to stand beside Rex; Ahsoka rolls her eyes and uses the toe of her boot to shove the shards of what used to be the mirror over the sink out of the way. She kneels.

“Master,” she says, and she carefully reaches out, lays a hand softly on his knee. She thinks of his handprint over Padme’s throat, of the glass he undoubtedly shattered in his explosion of grief when he woke up. “Hey, Master, don’t you want to get up?” she asks, pressing the suggestion into his mind, into their bond, into the Force.

Anakin shakes his head into his knees, has not stopped sobbing into his knees. 

“Anakin,” Ahsoka tries again, more forcefully. “It’s okay. You _do_ want to get up,” she says. “We can go get some more sleep.”

“No,” Anakin manages. “No, ‘Soka, no --” and he gasps in more sobbing breaths. 

“Come on,” Ahsoka says, encouraged by his recognition of her. “Let’s go, Master.”

“No!” Anakin yells, and he lifts his head, looks at Ahsoka with wild, dark eyes. Ahsoka gasps at the way they’re nearly tinged yellow under the low light in the fresher, thinks of things she probably isn’t supposed to remember, flashes of a strange, verdant planet, of the vision of Anakin’s dark destiny, of the warnings of a wise Togruta girl from the future. “No,” Anakin says again, and he struggles to suck in harsh, sharp, sobbing breaths.

“Why not?” Ahsoka asks. “Look, Rex and Kix will help us get home.” She turns to glance over her shoulder, to let Anakin see them. 

“No, no, no, ‘Soka,” Anakin groans. “No.”

“Come on,” Ahsoka tries, and she’s looking back at Anakin, blocking his view of Rex and Kix again. She leaves her right hand on Anakin’s knee but folds her left arm behind her back, frantically trying and failing to remember the specific hand-sign for tranquilizers, hoping the guys get what she means. _MEDIC SOON_ , she signs. _WAIT._

She moves her right hand to Anakin’s left shoulder, squeezes it. “Master,” she says. “It’s okay, let’s go.”

Anakin looks at her, aghast. “Ahsoka!” he exclaims, an eerie sense of clarity and frustration and pure _rage_ coming over him. “It’s not okay, Ahsoka!” he yells, and all at once he’s more angry than she’s ever seen him. He tenses under her hand, and it takes every ounce of self-control she has not to flinch away.

The name of Ahsoka’s headache is: Fear. 

Her left hand drifts from where she was signing behind her back to rest at her hip, just above her lightsaber. “I know,” she says, soft, gentle. “I know, but it will be, Master. We can make it through this together, right?” She tilts her head at him. “It’s late. We both need to sleep. We’ll be okay after we get some sleep.”

“It’s NOT GONNA BE OKAY, AHSOKA!” Anakin bellows, and he turns his head, resting his sweaty forehead against her right wrist. 

“Master --” Ahsoka starts again, but Anakin heaves in a sob and cuts her off.

“Obi-Wan is dead!” he yells, and this brings on a fresh round of tears. Anakin is starting to pitch forward, and he reaches for her right arm with his left flesh hand; suddenly they’re both gripping one another’s shoulders. “Obi-Wan is dead,” he whimpers brokenly, leaning closer into her; he collapses his forehead into the hollow of the space between the front of her right shoulder and her neck, his flesh hand inching around her back, pulling her closer.

“Oh, Anakin,” Ahsoka murmurs, sliding her right arm from his shoulder to around the back of his neck, letting him sag into her. “Anakin, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothes, and he’s shaking his head against her, sobbing against her body.

“It’s not okay,” he moans into her collarbone, and she sighs, hoping that he’s safe enough, now, to try to handle.

 _MEDIC NOW_ , she signs behind her back, and she hears the _crunch_ of Kix’s boots over the glass on the floor.

“Look, Master, Kix is gonna help us get home,” she says. She feels a hand rest wide and warm on the bare skin of the middle of her upper back, and she glances up: Kix has approached on her left side, focused on Anakin, and Rex on her right, his jaw clenched tight with grief and anger; his open hand relaying a promise of protection down her spine. She nods, sends him gratitude through their command bond. “And Rex, too, see?” she adds to Anakin, holding him close.

Kix kneels at her left.

“Master, Kix is gonna help you get up, okay?” she asks, and he’s shaking in her arms, and she feels the moment when Kix injects the hypo: Anakin tenses and gasps, and her fear of his raw power spikes briefly before he sags, his body lax against her.

“Kriff,” Ahsoka sighs heavily. 

Kix slides under Anakin’s right arm, slides it over his neck, begins to lift him to his feet.

“Easy,” Rex says, lifting his hand from her back, offering it to her with a frown.

She takes it, lets him help pull to her feet. “It’s fine,” she says, but she realizes how hard she’s breathing, how she feels like she’s just sprinted a mile on the battlefield, how much she’s shaking, how much adrenaline has spiked in her bloodstream. “I’m fine,” she says, letting go of Rex’s hand, and Rex narrows his eyes at her, huffs the ghost of a disbelieving laugh at her through his nose.

“Let’s get him back to the Temple,” Ahsoka says, and Rex nods, turns to help Kix, slinging Anakin’s left arm over his shoulders.

Ahsoka leaves them to deal with Anakin and goes to Padme, finding her and Tania sitting at the long dining room table at the front of the hall.

“Ahsoka,” Padme says quietly. She looks down at her lap. “I’ve known Anakin for a long time,” she starts. Ahsoka walks closer, grips the back of an empty chair to steady herself. She still feels trembly all over; she wonders distantly if throwing up would help. “I was with him when his mother passed into the Force,” Padme continues. She looks up at Ahsoka. “Please be careful.” 

Ahsoka nods. “I know my Master,” she says, with a false sense of confidence, thinking of Master Obi-Wan again as she pulls The Commander to her. “He’ll be okay with time. And with justice. He won’t rest until Obi-Wan’s murderer is brought to justice.”

Padme sighs. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“He’ll be okay,” Ahsoka says again, not wanting to admit how much Padme’s fears are her own. She looks at Padme. “Are _you_ okay?”

Padme laughs, short and fake. “Honestly? No.” She sighs, looks back down at her hands. “My dear friend has been murdered, my --” she bites her tongue, swallowing the word, and Ahsoka tilts her head, filling it in: _lover_ \-- “Anakin is hurting so much that he’s out of control of his powers, and now I have to order a cleaning service, as Dutchess Satine is supposed to be here in the morning.” Ahsoka shakes her head at Padme’s final comment, clearly meant to bring some levity. Both of them try for a smile to share about it; both of them can't quite make it.

“What happened?” Ahsoka asks, gesturing at Padme’s throat. Padme lifts her fingers to it, probes the edge of the bruise gingerly. 

“He didn’t mean to,” Padme says with a wince. “He was exhausted and grieving, fell asleep, and woke up very upset.” She shrugs. “We’re at war, Ahsoka. People die. And that’s why we have to do everything we can to _stop_ the progression of this war,” she adds, pulling, for a brief moment, the zeal of The Senator over her. “Because our loved ones will keep getting hurt until we do.”

“I believe in you, Padme,” Ahsoka offers, because she does, because Padme is shrewd and compassionate all at once, because she might be the only person who can unify the Senate to stop it all.

Padme gets up from her chair. “Thank you, Ahsoka,” she says, and The Senator is gone. She holds Ahsoka at arm’s length by both shoulders. “Please, please be careful,” she says.

Ahsoka nods. “I will be.”

Kix reappears at Ahsoka’s left shoulder. “My Lady,” he says. “May I see?”

Padme lets go of Ahsoka and turns to Kix. “It’s nothing,” she says. “Please take Anakin home.” Kix is digging through his pack, though. “Do you think you could get him to go to a mind healer?” Padme asks, and Kix actually snorts out a laugh.

“Ah, sorry, ma'am,” Kix says as he produces the special bacta salve he’s developed for quickly healing deep, nasty bruises from the bottom of his pack. “I don’t mean to laugh.” He unscrews the top from the salve, squeezes a little onto the pad of his right index finger, reaches for Padme’s chin gently with his left hand. She lets him, tilts her head, and Ahsoka has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from swearing at the way the bruise has darkened in just the few minutes they’ve been here. “But you must already know the General will not go to a mind healer,” Kix continues as he works. “If they even had any available openings, which they probably don't,” he adds in a frustrated mutter. 

Kix finishes gently applying the salve; he lets go of Padme’s chin. “Here,” he says, and he pulls a smaller packet of the salve from the front pocket of his pack, hands it to her. “Reapply in a few hours if it’s not healing quickly enough.”

“Thank you,” Padme says. 

“We’ll take care of him,” Kix tells her. “Don’t worry. We take care of our own.”

Ahsoka’s communicator beeps. Ahsoka answers it. “ _Come on_ ,” Rex’s voice says, from her wrist. “ _Let’s get a move on._ ”

“Take care, Padme,” Ahsoka says. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Yes,” Padme says. “Thank you, Ahsoka, Kix, Rex.”

“Always,” Ahsoka says as she turns to go.

*

Ahsoka is moving on autopilot through the kitchenette in the apartment, making tea, because she did not know what to do, so she fell back on what Master Obi-Wan would do.

Rex sighs from where he’s leaning his chin heavily in the palm of his right hand, his elbow resting on the right arm of the couch. 

Ahsoka glances at the chrono over the stove; it’s 0427.

After somehow getting Anakin back to their apartment in the Temple without being seen, after getting him into his bed in his room, after Rex had sworn to stay with Ahsoka (to protect her, he had not said out loud but all three of them had understood, to protect her with his life, if necessary, when Anakin woke up the next time), Kix had grasped Rex hard by the forearm and embraced him and had promised to look after Cody while Rex looked after the General, and had left. Rex had watched the door close behind Kix, had locked it, and had sighed with all of his being, had crossed the apartment, had let himself collapse gracelessly on the couch, and Ahsoka had been left standing in the middle of the kitchenette, staring at the back of Rex’s head, trying to figure out what to do.

Tea had given her hands a purpose. The water boils, and she pours it into the two mugs, trying to ground herself in the here and now, in the smell of the spicy tea. She pauses, disengaging her mental autopilot, thinking of Obi-Wan. She glances over at Rex. His posture is one of defeat and exhaustion, the sad slope of his shoulders clear even under his armor, and she nudges at his mind with hers, a question so soft she doesn’t even speak it aloud: _Rex?_

He doesn’t move, but he hums a soft, questioning, “Hm?” across the room at her.

“Uh,” she asks, “do you want --” and she feels a bit silly proposing it, silly to be playing the part of a Padawan caught borrowing from her Master’s -- her Grandmaster’s, to be more accurate -- stash like this, but, well, it's what Obi-Wan would offer Rex, if he were here, probably -- “just a splash of brandy in your tea?”

Rex lifts his head at that, turns, looks at her over his right shoulder, the barest smile curling at the corner of his mouth. It hits Ahsoka at all at once how _bad_ he looks -- how bad he has been looking for weeks, now, but right now especially so, the smudgey circles under his eyes nearly as dark as the bruise across Padme’s throat.

“Maybe two splashes,” he says, and he watches her as she digs into the back of the cabinet, adds the brandy to the mugs, stirring it in with a small spoon, puts the brandy back, crosses the living area.

She sets the two mugs down on the table in front of the couch, toes out of her boots, unhooks her lightsabers from her belt, and sits beside him to his left, folding her knees and crossing her legs and tucking her feet under her. 

“Two splashes,” she says, gesturing at his mug, picking up her own.

He sighs, straightens up. He unclips his double holster belt and lays it on the table with her lightsabers, slowly toes out of his boots and lets them fall to the side, unclasps his vambraces and puts them on the floor next to his helmet. He glances backward, toward the short hall to Anakin and Ahsoka's rooms, then down at his wrist chrono, and seems to make some kind of decision about Anakin, reaches for the latch at his shoulder that releases his chestpiece. He eases it off, sighing, rolling his shoulders around, then sets it on the floor with the rest, leaving himself in just his blacks on top, but seeming to not be relaxed enough about Anakin to lose his bottom armor pieces.

He leans forward, picks up his mug, blows a breath over it, takes a sip.

“Thank you,” he says, and they drink in contemplative silence. 

Ahsoka is carried into her thoughts, is thinking of past times that Master Obi-Wan had allowed her to slip just a splash of brandy into her tea with a wink and a nod, and she sighs. Her throat feels tight, and she clenches her jaw against it, willing the emotion away, willing it to let her go, to go into the Force. It stays. 

“We clones, we were literally made to die,” Rex says, long moments later, breaking the silence between them. “But, somehow, I can’t stop thinking recently that, if that were the truth, _really_ the truth, it wouldn’t hurt so much, to taste death, to lose those closest to us.”

Ahsoka sips the last of her tea, leans forward to set the mug on the table, uncrosses and re-crosses her legs.

“I’ve been thinking the same things, about the Order,” she says, her mind a little more relaxed, now, by the splash of brandy in her tea, by the exhaustion from today, by the trust and affection and warmth and aching pain that all hang heavy in her mental connection with Rex. “If ‘there is no death, there is the Force,’ were really true,” she muses, “then why -- why does the Force have to _hurt_ so much, when there is death?”

Rex finishes his tea, sets his mug on the table, leans back on the couch, glances at her as though making sure it’s okay before he shifts to put his feet up, resting his sock-feet heels on the edge of the table. Of course it’s okay, and Ahsoka tucks her feet further under her, leaning back into the couch a little more heavily, as well.

“I’m starting to think the things we were taught as children weren't all true,” he says.

“Mm,” she hums in agreement. “I think you’re right.”

She leans the back of her head against the back of the couch, sighs deeply, lets her eyes drift closed, lifts both hands to rub at her temples, behind her jaw, around her orbital sockets, but nothing really helps.

“Are you alright?” he asks, at length.

“I’ve had such a kriffing headache all day,” she admits, through her hands over her face. “My bond with Master Obi-Wan, it’s --” she sighs, and she squeezes her eyes tight, clenches her jaw, because she can feel her throat getting tight again, can feel tears starting to well in her eyes again, and she feels like she probably isn't supposed to cry in front of Rex. “It hurts,” she finishes, quietly, hearing and hating the way her voice breaks. "When he -- it ripped our bond away from my mind. It hurts a lot." 

Rex turns, reaches out across his body with his right hand, touches her right wrist gently, almost tentatively, if she didn’t know better, if she didn’t know that Rex never does anything tentatively. 

“Ahsoka, I know,” he says, quiet, and Ahsoka lets him lower her hand, meets his eyes. “I -- “ he starts. He clears his throat. “I know how it feels. I’ve felt it all day, too.” 

She straightens up a little, leans a bit closer to him, lets her wrist slide through his grip, rests her right hand in his. She tilts her head at him, curious. 

“This,” he starts, waving at the space between their bodies with his open left hand, “this _ability_ , this connection I have, part of the whole reason me, a CT-line clone, was promoted up to Captain, when only the CCs really should hold this rank?” 

Ahsoka nods, nudges at his mind with hers. 

“Yeah,” Rex says, “that. That -- that ability to work better with the Jedi Generals, you know, because we can --”

“You can form bonds with Force users, because you’re slightly more Force sensitive than the average being,” Ahsoka offers.

Rex looks away, and Ahsoka feels the spike of grief between them in that bond. She squeezes his hand. “It -- it kept me alive, on Kadavo,” Rex says, a roughness in his voice that betrays his emotions. “I was -- I was ready to let everything go,” he says. “After Umbara. After General Krell. When we were taken to Kadavo, I thought.” He shakes his head, swallows heavily. 

“Rex,” Ahsoka breathes. She runs her thumb over the back of his hand, over his rough, scarred knuckles. 

“I thought, maybe, it was a sign of my time,” Rex whispers. “Time to give up. But.” He sighs, turns back to her, and the glitter of unshed tears in his eyes breaks the last intact pieces of Ahsoka’s heart in two.

She shifts her posture, turning fully toward him, taking his right hand in both of hers, now. 

“Obi-Wan kept me alive,” Rex tells her, quiet. “The -- our command bond, it deepened, beyond what it should have been able to. It kept us both from not giving up hope. Kept us both alive. I knew, even though the situation seemed hopeless, that it wouldn’t be the same as it was with Krell, on Umbara. Because I never felt lost, never felt like disposable property, never felt like he would -- would _use_ me, to get his way. Not with him right there like that, right there in my mind.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ahsoka says. “I feel -- I still feel so awful that I wasn’t there, when General Krell.” She bites her lip. She’s read the reports, of course, but she hasn’t really _talked_ to Rex about this, yet, despite the fact that they’ve had weeks in which they could have. Maybe it was the way Rex clearly didn’t want to talk about it, was under-sleeping and over-working, was plainly avoiding it, that kept her away. “Rex, I’m sorry,” she finishes, lamely, though she knows _sorry_ is never enough, in war.

“It’s behind us now,” he says, though she questions how true that is. “Losing my brothers, it’s not -- it hurts, but. But -- losing Obi-Wan, it feels like -- like there’s something fundamentally _missing_ from me.”

“Like there’s a hole in your mind?” Ahsoka offers, and Rex nods.

"Cody felt it, too," he says. "It's -- unreal."

“I -- that’s why I can't really be mad at Anakin, about tonight,” Ahsoka admits. “If it hurts for us this much, I can’t even imagine, with how long they've been together, how -- how _attached_ Anakin's always been to him.”

Rex narrows his eyes, something hard flitting over his face, but he still doesn't let go of Ahsoka's hands. “Regardless of the pain of the loss, he still should know better, do better,” he says. “Krell taught me something -- taught me all the warning signs. And, frankly, I think General Skywalker is letting himself get too close.”

“Too close to what?” Ahsoka asks.

“Too close to falling into darkness,” Rex pronounces gravely, and Ahsoka shivers involuntarily, her fear of Anakin’s yellowed eyes and of the future, of snatches of her memories of the Force gods’ planet, shaking her to her core. 

“No,” she gasps, and she can’t stop the tears gathering back in her eyes from this time. “No,” she argues, leaving her right hand in Rex's and reaching up with her left to swipe roughly and ineffectively at her tears, “Anakin won’t --” but something in the Force, something in her instincts, stops her, tells her, with alarming clarity, _oh, but he will_ , and she takes a sudden, sobbing gasp of breath in, presses her left hand against her mouth as though to put the breath back. “This war is ripping us all apart,” she gasps, and Rex’s jaw trembles.

“I know,” Rex says. He looks at her. “I feel it too,” he murmurs, and he tugs at her right hand, slowly pulling her toward him, but she resists, holds herself back, not wanting to -- 

“I’m a Jedi,” she manages, “I, I shouldn’t -- “ _be having an emotional breakdown in front of my Captain, but, like, too late for that_ , her brain supplies --

“I know,” Rex says, and she feels the distinct impressions of consent and safety and protection and kinship and _sameness_ surging between them, and she gives in, leans all the way in, into his embrace, tucking her knees and feet under her, leaning her head against his left shoulder. He wraps his left arm around her shoulders, slides his left palm back and forth against the ball joint of her left shoulder. “It's okay, I know,” he keeps reassuring her, and then he adds, “I won’t tell,” and she lets herself relax fully into his left side, the dip between her montrals wedging in under his chin.

Rex is trembling against her, his chest heaving as though he's struggling to breathe, and Ahsoka realizes how tense he is, how much he’s holding himself back. “You can -- you can cry, too, you know, if you need to,” she manages, shaky, muffled, into his chest, and he nods, his chin sharp against the top of her head. “I won’t tell,” she adds, and he nods more, makes a weird sound that could be a laugh and could be a sob. His chest and shoulders shake with increased force; he’s crying, now, too.

“ 'm sorry,” he whispers.

“No, it’s okay,” Ahsoka says. "We -- we have the same wound." She reaches for him, and they readjust, slot into one another like two gears in an engine, his chin against the top of her right shoulder and the right side of her forehead against his chest, her right hand in his soft, spiky hair and her left hand holding fast to the top of his blacks, his arms around her shoulders, his right hand resting protectively at the base of her rear lek, his left at the ridge of her left shoulder blade, both of them crying like they haven't since they were children, the shared burdens of two years of hell overwhelming them finally, the shock of Obi-Wan's death and the fear of Anakin's knife-edge anger their mutual breaking point. 

The Force wraps around them like a safety net, holding their shaking bodies and minds together as they cling a little tighter, as they let go.

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy i'm rusty at writing fic but i've been re-waching tcw in preparation for s7, and, wow, this arc/episode has always made me really upset. so here, have my feelings.
> 
> this goes out as always to [@brahe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe) thank u for always beta reading and cheerleading, ily babe <3 and also all of my love and affection to my friends who endure my yelling about tcw on discord <3 
> 
> check out [the playlist i made for our gal](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/post/190590985952/i-am-no-jedi-a-playlist-by-inconocible-on-spotify#notes) <3


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